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Best Android apps for your Samsung Galaxy Note’s S Pen

The Samsung Galaxy Note, with its huge 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen and innovative S Pen, has catapulted its way to success and becoming the world’s first phablet/phoneblet.

With the responsive and accurate movement of the S Pen, users can do a lot more things than just pointing and clicking buttons. In fact, we found the S Pen so powerful that it can provide new ways to capture and create ideas. With the introduction of new applications that are tailor-made for the S Pen, or can put it to really great use, the Galaxy Note truly becomes more than just a smartphone.

Here are some of the best Android apps that take advantage of the Galaxy Note’s superior and smart S Pen technology.

SketchBook Mobile is a great application to unleash your creativity, as well as fully utilizing your Galaxy Note’s S Pen. SketchBook Mobile is a drawing tool that will turn your Galaxy Note into a digital sketch pad for drawing, drafting, and even painting. Great for designers and hobbyists alike, SketchBook Moble can turn your thoughts into digital masterpieces.

Featuring an array of tools from airbrushes to pencils, SketchBook Mobile is definitely worth your time and money. And what better way to experience a professional grade application than by creating your works with the Galaxy Note’s intuitive S pen.

Make accurate drawings down to the finest lines and curves as SketchBook Mobile has everything to guide you.

Together with the Galaxy Note’s huge 5.3 inch display, drawing on a phablet this good is worth the time and effort.

SketchBook Mobile works great with other devices, too, provided they have the required 1.0 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM.

With over 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store, Draw Something Free is undoubtedly one of the best social networking games out there. Draw Something is a simple game where you pair up with someone or a friend you know and get head-to-head in a guessing game. Instead of acting the word using your body and mouth closed, Draw Something lets you draw that word and lets the other person guess what it is. If the other person guesses the word correctly, then both of you win. For your efforts, you’ll get some coins.

Words are categorized according to easy, medium and hard. The tougher the words, the more coins you will be rewarded for guessing correctly. Draw Something is addictive, fun and easy to play. And, what better way to draw the object by using the Galaxy Note’s S Pen.

Slice your way with your Galaxy Note’s stylus in the epic slicer game known as Fruit Ninja Free. Fruit Ninja is a juicy action game that is not only fun and addictive but also a great way to relieve stress. Become the ultimate fruit avenger and slice your way through every fruit without remorse.

Fruit Ninja is a straightforward game with only a single objective — slice as many fruits as you can. As the game progresses, bombs are being added into the mix, making dexterity and skill your best friend.

Slice fruits using your Galaxy Note’s S Pen, turning it into a samurai blade. Not only is the game fun but also a great way to use the phone’s S Pen.

Take advantage of the Galaxy Note’s huge 5.3-inch screen by reading/viewing Word documents, PDF files, PowerPoint presentations, and graphics through Adobe Reader, which is frequently associated with PDF files and is the popular choice of many users.

Adobe Reader for mobile devices retains the same functionality as its older brother found on many desktop computers. You can still view documents easily and can skim through numerous pages in a breeze.

One thing worth mentioning in Adobe Reader for Android is the fact that you can annotate words, highlight sentences, and even scribble some comments on the document itself. Not only that, you can also zoom in and out of the document and even sign any document by using a finger.

The Galaxy Note’s S Pen can do a great job in highlighting words in long documents as if you were holding a real book.

Adobe Photoshop Express for Android is a miniature version of the famous photo-editing software of the same name that is used on many desktop computers. Edit photos and share them instantly. You will be able to crop, rotate, adjust color, and add artistic effects to your creations. The app sports a clean user interface and controlling the image is as easy as it can get.

First time users can easily navigate through the app’s settings. The Galaxy Note’s S Pen can make short work of editing photos. If you happen to be working with Adobe Photoshop on your computer with a graphic tablet and a stylus, then the Galaxy Note’s S Pen won’t feel any different. You will still get accuracy and the ease of navigating through the options compared to using your bare hands.

Create works of art fast and easy with Photo Art – Color Effects. Color your favorite pictures using your fingers or apply several effects with a set of tools at your disposal. Instead of using your bare hands to do all of the coloring, why not take the advantage of the Galaxy Note’s S Pen? Photo Art is one of the best photo editing apps available and it does a great job in enhancing photos.

Photo Art features 31 different effects and 12 brush types in its arsenal. Just like in any image editing application, you can configure the size of the brushes in pixels and other configuration settings. The Galaxy Note’s S pen can greatly lessen the burden with pinpoint precision and other stuff that need to be done accurately.

Here’s an application made especially for kids. Kids Doodle – Movie Kids Paint is an easy-to-use drawing application for kids and adults alike. The app features more than ten beautiful brushes that vary differently according to the color it represents. Users will be presented with a black background and a set of tools to start painting their pictures. The colors available are very much bright and attractive, sure to keep kids captivated.

There is also a built-in gallery recording for keeping track of your drawing progress. After completing a piece, convert the recording into a movie for kids to watch how their drawings come to life. Works can easily be shared through Facebook, Gmail, or Picasa. Kids Doodle is absolutely free to download on the Google Play Store.

Scratch Draw Art Game is like Draw Something for kids. Basically, the app is an art game where users start off with a black screen and scratch their way to create an image. Instead of the usual white canvas, Scratch Draw Art is completely the opposite. Behind the black background lies a random image and the more users scratch the surface, the more the picture is revealed.

On top of the main screen lies the tools: a pencil, an eraser, save, and share buttons. Scratch Draw features more than 260 backgrounds for users to discover and a pencil that supports multiple thickness.

Overall, Scratch Draw is a great starter application for aspiring young artists. Together with the Galaxy Note’s S Pen, scratch drawing is as easy as it can get.

Another educational application that really puts the Galaxy Note’s S Pen to good use is 123s ABCs Handwriting Fun Finger Tracing Flashcard SET1. Finger tracing has never been so exciting and fun. Especially made for kids who have just started to write their first ABC’s, Finger Tracing Flashcard is a great companion to teach kids in the art of writing.

On the app’s main home screen, users can choose a set which they want to master by tracing. These sets include lowercase and uppercase ABC’s, numbers, and basic shapes. Once they have finished choosing a category, users can then start tracing their desired sets. The app is also kind of enough to provide instructions on how to properly write or draw a particular figure.

If your kids love coloring books then Kids Finger Painting Art Game will definitely make them fall in love with digital coloring. Kids Finger Painting Art Game is basically a fun-filled application that lets users paint over 120 coloring pages. There are different brushes to choose from and a paint bucket for easy coloring. But, if you really want some precision in coloring those sharp edges, there’s nothing better than using the Galaxy Note’s S Pen.

Kids of all ages will be amazed at the beautiful colors available to them and the drawings they can use them on. No more broken crayons or having to sharpen colored pencils! Users can have some digital fun using only their smartphones. Users can also zoom in and out of the drawings and choose varied coloring materials.

Another application that fully utilizes the Galaxy Note’s S Pen functionality is Markers. The app is an easy-to-use application with multi-touch support and is pressure-sensitive. Compared to other drawing applications, Markers is claimed by many users to be the most accurate of them all. Even if you don’t have a stylus or S Pen, you can still draw using your fingers, and depending on how deep or how light you press on your screen, Markers will detect the pressure, resulting in either dark or lighter lines.

It may take a while for Markers to fully adjust to your device’s touch panel, so a little bit of patience is the key to make that drawing as accurate as possible. Markers also sports a kid-friendly user interface that is easy to use. Pen size can be change and you can choose from numerous pen colors. The app also has an accident feature that prevents accidental screen touches from resulting in rendering lines on the screen.

Say goodbye to doing things with just the tip of your finger. Make good use of the Galaxy Note’s S Pen with these applications. Which one of these Galaxy Note S Pen-friendly apps do you have? Do you think you’ll be able to live without your S Pen?

Paul and I.T. are synonyms. If you need help with I.T.-related stuff, call on Paul. His experience with Android phones goes way back to the ancient single-core-phone days. But, he keeps himself up to date, so now he has a dual-core beast in his pocket, and is looking forward to getting his first quad-core monster, and when it comes, his first eight-core phone. Perhaps he should be called Mr. X-Core, where "X" equals the number of CPU cores.